Aid Call has supplied one of its nurse call systems to St Oswald’s Hospice, three miles outside Newcastle City Centre, after a lightning strike in 2015 unexpectedly hit the facility, causing unavoidable failure to all the electrics and the nurse call system.
Val Forster, the Inpatient Unit manager, said: “The lightning strike completely wiping out our system was in fact a blessing in disguise, because it allowed us to have the new system installed. Aid Call initially implemented temporary measures to allow us to continue to support patients while we researched a new system. The main thing I remember about our earlier system was that it was very loud, and when patients are very poorly, noise pollution can be a significant issue. The new system has made a massive difference; our nurses now use the Bluebell pagers, which are small and very easy to clean, and can be logged into by each staff member, which is great for identifying where they are on the ward. However the main benefit is that the pagers can be programmed to vibrate or quietly bleep, ensuring no noisy alarms, and simplifying identifying priority calls.”
Facilities manager, Jane Hamblin, said: “I’ve been with the hospice for just over 17 years now, and we’ve grown massively in that time. Aid Call has been a very big part of that journey, undertaking a lot of R&D that has really brought this new system into the 21st century.”
